P10 Planning and Problem solving

Mood Boards:

• Psychonauts 2: (intended game)

• Nintendo DS: (intended platform)

reflection:

Above are the mood boards for my demake game, I made these to start my planning for demasking Psychonauts 2. I feel like I have put the right images on the mood boards to convey what idea have for this project. Whats good about making a mood board is that it’s a good start to planning a project, because it is a quick and easy way of showing someone what sort of thing you want to create. Another thing that I can take away from this is that I now have a better understanding of what I want my demake to look like, and what my intended platform is.

Psychonauts 2 gameplay loop:

The gameplay loop of Psychonauts 2 mostly consists of platforming, this is the main gameplay loop of the game. If you broke down a level of psychonauts 2, (not in order) it would consist of:

• mainly platforming
• collecting figments (the main collectable of the game)
• combat, fighting a variation of enemies using different abilities to use against their weaknesses
• puzzles, the player has to use new abilities to work out puzzles that are throughout the level
• Usually a boss at the end, again which the player will have to use the new abilities they might have gained in the level.

So the primary gameplay loop is platforming, the secondary gameplay loop of psychonauts 2 is finishing the level, and collecting the figments (collectables), and the tertiary gameplay loop of psychonauts 2 is playing every mission, collecting every collectible and finishing the story. So when making my De-make of one of the levels in Psychonauts 2, I need to keeping in mind these core gameplay loops, and translate them well into 2D, the primary gameplay loop should translate well as it is only platforming which can be done easily in 2D, the secondary gameplay loop of Psychonauts 2 is collecting figments and finishing the level which I will also have in my de-make, and the tertiary gameplay loop of Psychonauts would be a bit harder to do as it is completing the game, and due to my de-make only being a portion of the game it’s not really possible to have this tertiary gameplay loop.

Games Details grid:

Reflection:

Above is the planning documentation for my projects games details grid. I made this to start actually planning how the game will work. I feel like I have presented enough information to convey my ideas properly through this design document. Making this games details grid was quite helpful because I needed to get this done before other planning so that I have my main idea ready and planned out. Another thing I can take from this is that I can now move on to sound planning, which is another key part of the project I will need to plan before producing.

Visual References:

• The main character: Raz

This is the main character of the Psychonauts series, Razputin. He will be the character you control and play as in my demake, Raz is a child with super Psychic powers and can go into peoples minds, he is also quite athletic due to him growing up in the circus, so when I come to demake this character and animate his movement I need to make sure it is faithful to the game be making his movement look energetic just like it is in the actual games. The key element of Raz’s design is probably his pilot hat and goggles, without these it wouldn’t look like raz, so when I design the sprite for Raz in my demake I will have to make sure his hat and goggles stand out and can be clearly seen when playing my demake.

• The level’s theme: Casino theme

This is a level in Psychonauts 2, Hollis hot streak. The level is set in someones mind that has been corrupted by gambling, and it is up to Raz (the player) to re-connect the mental connections to fix her mind, but he has to go through a whole mission of casino themed puzzles, platforming and combat. When I come to demaking this level for this project, it might come with a few challenges when trying to translate this 3D level into 2D but I feel like if I try to be as faithful as I possibly could with the look, it might balance out nicely with the change in gameplay.

The enemies: Censors

These are the main enemies the player fights in the Psychonauts series, they are only seen inside someone’s mind in the games, because they are censors, which are part of a brains psyche that look for things that don’t belong i.e. the player. They attack the player by running at them with small melee attacks, so that transitions quite nicely into 2D, unlike other enemies in the game.

Level design:

Above is a rough idea of what my level should look like for my demake, after playing through the level in the actual games multiple times, and observing all the mechanics in that part of the game, I included some of the key aspects of the level into this design, these include: The zap platforms that turn off and on that the player needs to make timed jumps to get across. The jump pads that are used throughout the level that lets the player get to higher places. Lastly, mental connections, the player jumps into these, and they bring him to certain points through the level, this is also a new ability that the player learns how to use throughout the entire level. I also marked on the concept where the player will have small combat areas, these are areas that the player will be locked in until they defeat all the enemies, I added these because I thought it would really add to the gameplay seeing as the combat is another major key gameplay loop of Psychonauts. I also added figments (the collectables in the game) that move up and down in the mental connection areas, so the player has some mini objects throughout my level. What is really good about drawing a plan of the level in my demake is that it gives me a clear idea of where everything is in my level, making the production process a lot easier and more manageable. Now that I have my level planned out, I can start making a list of all the assets I will need for my demake.

Asset chart:

Sound Planning:

Production Art:

• Sprite test:

I decided to see what Raz could look like with the DS’s resolution if he was a sprite in my demake, the first thing I did when testing this was getting the right resolution. The DS’s resolution is 256 x 192 pixels, and sprites in ds games are around 32 x 32 – 64 x 64, so I made the image size similar to these sizes. I then put the image into photoshop with the sprite size, which looked quite blurred and unclear, so I then edited the image in photoshop and I think it came out pretty well. obviously this is not the method I will use when making my actual sprites, it was more of a test to see what the sprites in my game might look like, within the limitations of the DS’s screensize. For the actual sprites in my game I will probably make a simple drawing of the sprites in photoshop then use the same way I converted the image into a smaller resolution, with my own drawings which will save a lot of time in the animation process as well. this is also very similar to the way actual DS graphics were achieved, for example: New Super Mario Bros of the Nintendo DS used a similar way of creating graphics, they used a model for marios sprite then put it into the game which gave it the low resolution because of the Nintendo DS’s screen resolution.

2D character animation rigging:

Above is a quick sketch of what the animation rig for the main character’s animations will look like. I had to use a layer for each part of the body so that I could manipulate them for animation. The plan for the main character’s sprite is to properly draw each body part so that I could manipulate it for animation, but when I put the frames into construct (construct will be set to have the Nintendo DS screen resolution) it will look pixelated, like existing DS game sprites. I chose this method of creating the sprites because its similar to how it is done with games like New Super Mario bros, where they made a 3D model, then ported it into the game it gave the illusion of 3D but it was actually a 2D pixilated sprite due to the Nintendo DS screen resolution. This also means that I wouldn’t have to spends ages animating each frame when I could just manipulate a rig in Photoshop, and I wouldn’t have to make the rig super detailed either because of the way it will be ported into construct.

• Background:

I decided to have a go at visualising what the background for my demake will look like, again this is not the final thing its just a plan of what my background should look like. I will probably add more detail like floating casino themed objects (seen in the actual level), when coming to actual make the background. Overall I think this is a good visualisation of what the background will look like in the final version of my demake.

• Sketch of level:

• Sketch of The Enemy/ The Combat:

These are some sketches that I drew to get more of a visualisation of what my demake of Psychonauts 2 should look like. These sketches will help me get an idea of what animations I should have in my game, and I will use these sketches as reference. I wanted to have the animations be very expressive, as they are in the Original game, because the target audience of this demake will be expecting these types of animations from this demake, after player Psychonauts 2, so it is quite important for this demake to be faithful.

Interactable bottom screen User Interface:

This is a plan of the interactable bottom screen menu/ui, when coming up with ideas for demaking a game for the Nintendo DS, I made sure that I needed to pick a game that could have a interactable menu on the bottom screen, because one of the main design features of the Nintendo DS was the Bottom touch screen, I also chose to include important player information on the bottom screen too, just like how games for the Nintendo DS also put most of the UI on the bottom screen. I also made sure the health took up the most space, because I believe that the health of the player would be the most important information to show in the UI, I also tried to show in the planning that the UI should look as faithful as possible, so I did a rough sketch of what the health would look like in the final version of the game.

Production schedule:

This is my Production Schedule for project 10, I feel like making a production schedule is quite important because sticking to a schedule always helps, because it keeps you on track and ahead of your work. Usually though in other projects, I would probably do things in different order, and sometimes not following the production schedule is alright as long as I get all the work done in the end, because some days I might decide I want to do more work and finish other things from the schedule.